A space war could break out within five years, experts have warned, with civilian companies already pivoting to defence in preparation.
British-based Astroscale, which was founded to remove space debris from Earth’s orbit, is now involved in classified military programmes which could repurpose its technology to monitor or deter threatening enemy spacecraft.
Orbit Fab, a space refuelling company, is also working with the British Ministry of Defence on “defensive and offensive capabilities in space”.
Last month, the US Space Force admitted it had deployed a weapon in space for the first time, while Chinese satellites have been spotted dogfighting, and it is feared that Russia has a nuclear device in orbit.
At a meeting organised by Astroscale this week in London, Dr Julia Balm, of the Freeman Air and Space Institute, in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said allied nations were now finding themselves “targeted” in space by adversaries “on a daily basis”.
“If we’re looking at the number of satellites proliferating in orbit and the capabilities that are growing in both scale, but also in their technical capacity ... we are looking at conflict emerging not only in the domain, but in the next five years,” she said.
“If an adversary believes that it can disrupt satellites and potentially cripple not only our military operations but also critical national infrastructure, we have to see that as space being an attractive means of coercion in the eyes of our adversaries and prepare as such.
“It’s a question really about resilience at an operational level, about organising ourselves in space as a war-fighting domain.”
Modern life is now largely reliant on satellites and the destruction of communications or GPS would have immediate and catastrophic consequences for the Western World, including information blackouts and financial-sector collapse.
Air traffic control services would be rendered blind and essential services such as the internet, television and weather forecasting would cease to function. It is predicted that modern life would be pushed back to the 19th century.
In 2022, Russia launched the satellite Cosmos2553, which US intelligence agencies believe may carry components of a nuclear device, although it is difficult to be sure because the sun is very active currently, meaning radioactive signs are cloaked by the solar wind.
Detonating a nuclear weapon in space would release huge amounts of radiation and high-energy particles, which could destroy or permanently damage a significant proportion of satellites in orbit around Earth and render orbits unusable.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute has said Russia appears to be considering a “mass kill” of satellites in orbit.
In 2025, Russia launched further Cosmos spacecraft, which have conducted suspicious synchronised manoeuvres and released “Object F”, while its Luch/Olymp intelligence satellites have been spotted stalking European spacecraft which provide critical data and communications to Earth.
Just this week, a Russian military satellite moved close to ICEYE X36, an Earth-observation satellite that has been supporting Ukraine.
China’s Shenlong space plane has been seen practising capturing objects in orbit, while Chinese satellites have also demonstrated refuelling off-planet, the first to do so, and practising close proximity operations with other orbital objects, coming within a few feet of each other.
Nick Shave, the managing director of Astroscale, said the company had never intended to have a military arm when it was founded in 2013 for in-space servicing, but changed direction following the UK’s strategic defence review (SDR) in 2024, which warned of war in space.
“For the last 20 or 30 years, we’ve been able to just put objects in orbit and be fairly happy that they’re not going to get attacked, but I think that’s changing now,” he said.
“We need to really develop the capability to show we are strong and that we will protect our assets.”
He added: “RPO [rendezvous and proximity operations] have always been of interest in the defence domain, but the strategic defence review was the first time that space as a war-fighting domain from a UK Government perspective was really recognised. So that was a wake-up call.”
Shave said it may be possible to send payloads to deter aggressive spacecraft, in a similar way to how chaff is deployed to disrupt guided missile systems.
“There could be different ways of stopping an aggressor coming towards you or interfering with your satellite and deterring that,” he said.
“I would hope that we wouldn’t end up in a sort of missile war-zone Armageddon-type scenario.”
In September, the Royal Air Force announced its first space squadron dedicated to defending Britain’s satellites.
Wes Streeting, the British Defence Secretary, warned that the threat in space was “growing in speed, scale and sophistication”, often mirroring geopolitics on Earth.
Across the globe, countries have been developing ever-more elaborate space weapons, including electromagnetic pulses, lasers, dazzlers to blind optical sensors and grapplers to latch on to satellites and pull them out of orbit. Anti-satellite missiles have also been tested.
Jacob Geer, Orbit Fab’s managing director, said: “When I started the debris removal programme, we didn’t talk to the Ministry of Defence, but trying to change and adapt an unco-operative satellite could be useful to the UK and other militaries around the world.
“The world changed and now that pivot to defence has happened. RPO can both give you defensive and offensive capabilities in space. A lot of military people see a need to manoeuvre their satellites without using their fuel.”
The European Space Agency has also started making its projects dual-use to include military and security elements.
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